Domain-Specific Regularization Strategies for ECG Waveform Boundaries in 1D Region Proposal Networks

Richard Redina1, Jakub Hejc2, Marina Filipenska3, Zdenek Starek4
1Brno University of Technology; International Clinic Research Centre, St. Anna's University Hospital, Brno, 2International Clinical Research Center, St. Anne's University Hospital, Brno, Czech Republic; Department of Pediatric, Children's Hospital, The University Hospital Brno, Brno, Czech Republic, 3Brno University of Technology, 4Department of Internal Medicine, Cardioangiology, St. Anne's University Hospital in Brno


Abstract

Standard Region Proposal Networks (RPN) lack domain-specific constraints necessary for robust ECG waveform detection. We propose four regularization strategies – Variance, RMSE, CVaR, and Log-Sum-Exp – that embed morphological priors directly into the loss function of a two-stage 1D detector. Evaluating 74 training runs across synthetic and clinical (LUDB) datasets, we show that regularization effectiveness is fundamentally dataset-dependent. While clinical recordings achieved up to 49.6% improvement in QRS localization, identical constraints degraded synthetic performance by 16.0%. This suggests regularization acts primarily as an implicit denoising mechanism for clinical variability rather than a universal geometric enforcer. Offset boundaries showed 2–3× larger gains than onsets, with tail-focused losses (LSE, CVaR) proving most effective. These findings demonstrate that clinically-aware loss design must prioritize data-specific noise characteristics over rigid morphological stability.